http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch7.htm
. . . According to KSM, Bin Ladin had been urging him to advance the date of the attacks. In 2000, for instance, KSM remembers Bin Ladin pushing him to launch the attacks amid the controversy after then-Israeli opposition party leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. KSM claims Bin Ladin told him it would be enough for the hijackers simply to down planes rather than crash them into specific targets. KSM says he resisted the pressure.177
KSM claims to have faced similar pressure twice more in 2001. According to him, Bin Ladin wanted the operation carried out on May 12, 2001, seven months to the day after the Cole bombing. KSM adds that the 9/11 attacks had originally been envisioned for May 2001.
The second time he was urged to launch the attacks early was in June or July 2001, supposedly after Bin Ladin learned from the media that Sharon would be visiting the White House.
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010626-12.html)
On both occasions KSM resisted, asserting that the hijacking teams were not ready. Bin Ladin pressed particularly strongly for the latter date in two letters stressing the need to attack early.The second letter reportedly was delivered by Bin Ladin's son-in-law, Aws al Madani.178
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/09/28/jerusalem.violence.02/
Israeli troops, Palestinians clash after Sharon visits Jerusalem sacred site
September 28, 2000
Web posted at: 9:28 a.m. EDT (1328 GMT)
(snip)
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A visit by Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon to the site known as the Temple Mount by Jews sparked a clash on Thursday between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli troops, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. Other clashes erupted in the West Bank town of Ramallah. More than 30 people, most Israeli soldiers, were hurt in the Jerusalem clashes, which began after Sharon left what Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call al-Haram as-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary.
Sharon, leader of the hard-line opposition party Likud, said he had gone to the site with a message of peace. "I believe that we can live together with the Palestinians," Sharon said. "I came here to the holiest place of the Jewish people in order to see what happens here and really to have the feeling of how we need to move forward. There was no provocation here." . . .
http://www.time.com/time/daily/1996/960925/textonly.html
TIME DAILY
Wednesday, September 25, 1996
Firefight In The West Bank (snip)
RAMALLAH, West Bank: In the most violent uprising since the Intifada ended in 1993, Palestinian police and Israeli soldiers engaged in gun battles Wednesday as riots raged in Jerusalem and the West Bank. At least four Palestinians, including two policemen, were killed and more than 240 were injured, including 30 who were hit by Israeli gunfire.
The outbreaks were set off by Israel's completion of an archaeological tunnel Tuesday along the Temple Mount, a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews. . .
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/24/israel.tunnel/index.html
All updates on Israel appreciated CallMeJoe.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/763217.html
Last update - 23:48 15/09/2006
Islamic Movement head: J'lem destined capital of caliphate
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Islamic Movement leader Sheik Ra'ad Salah said that Jerusalem will soon become the capital of an Islamic nation and that Israel's occupation of the Temple Mount is nearing its end, Israel Radio reported on Friday.
Salah told a crowd of 50,000 people in the northern town of Umm al-Fahm that comatose former-prime minister Ariel Sharon and President Moshe Katsav, who is currently under investigation for alleged sex crimes, were "paying the price" for damaging Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque.
In his speech, the Sheik responded to Pope Benedict XVI's remarks on Mohammed, saying he hoped they were an accidental slip of tongue.
He also addressed the issue of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, urging Hamas not to agree to a prisoner exchange with the Israeli government which will not include the release of jailed Israeli Arabs.
Salah and three other Islamic Movement officials were held by police in detention for 21 months under suspicion of contacting militant Palestinian groups.